


i hope i get the chance to be someone

by amorias



Series: i was born to tell you i love you [3]
Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Loss of Parents, M/M, Runaway AU, Swearing, Trauma, mentions of physical/emotional abuse, orphan tajima, sex with a minor, tajima is really fricked up in this fic i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:59:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorias/pseuds/amorias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tajima can't seem to find a place to belong.<br/>(Oofuri boarding house AU, ft. Tajima as the troubled orphan and Hanai as the university student he falls for)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic got... really out of hand... but i hope you guys all enjoy it!! riou is kinda ooc because wow how does he even talk, but yeah! i hope you can forgive me for that and hope you like the fic!!

Tajima wasn't totally convinced that the person who found him wasn't an angel, at first.

Maybe it was just the fogginess of his vision, turning black around the edges, or the numbness of his body and mind that convinced him of such a thing. He was broken on the inside and dirty on the outside, and he flinched away from the touch of the boy with silvery hair and white glasses.

He had maybe two cardboard boxes and a backpack to his name, filled only half full with clothes that didn't quite fit him anymore or were in desperate need of replacing. The tall boy took off his letterman-style jacket and draped it over Tajima's shoulders – he cringed at the touch.

He was being talked to, he knew that much, but the words kept getting mixed up in his head, and little sparks of black kept clouding his vision. After getting no response, the other boy gave up and stepped out of the alley, apparently calling someone on his cell phone.

“I think he needs our help,” was what Tajima could make out before his vision went totally black and his ears felt like they were being stuffed with cotton, his head slumping back against the wall.

 

When Tajima wakes up, his face is pressed against something warm, and he's moving – he's being carried up a flight of stairs, and he can feel someone's hands under his knees, and the same person's short hair tickling the side of his face. He blinks a few times, a quiet groan escaping his lips as he tries to move. He wants to say something, but his throat is dry and scratchy, any words he could say choking him.

“Oh, you're awake,” the person carrying him says, turning their head to the side. Tajima recognizes him as the boy from before, who gave him his jacket, which he realizes he's still wearing. “Good.” They take the last step up the stairs and into the small, wood-floored hallway of the second floor that creaks when they walk on it. Tajima's eyes just barely catch the sight of the barely open door next to the one they stop at – it closes immediately after the two boys stop, and the freckled boy feels like he might just be hallucinating. The other boy slides open the door to a vacant room, only as big as six tatami mats, already furnished with a futon-style bed, a desk, and a dresser. The two cardboard boxes Tajima was found with already sit in the middle of the room.

“Where am I?” He asks, voice so hoarse and quiet that it probably wouldn't even have been audible if he hadn't been right next to the other boy's ear when he said it. He wriggles out of the boy's grip, falling delicately to the floor, wavering a bit on his right side when he lands.

“At a boarding house,” the grey haired boy says, putting his hands into his pockets and turning around, the fading light from the window glinting off his glasses. “My mom owns this place and rents out rooms to people.” He smiles slightly, a kind of worried smile that makes Tajima's breath catch. “Um, by the way... what's your name?”

He swallows, hunching up his shoulders around his face, hugging himself.

“Tajima,” he says finally, after a long silence, his gaze drifting around to different, nondescript places on the floor.

“I'm Hanai. Nice to meet you.” He holds a hand out that Tajima doesn't take – he slips it back into his pocket and clears his throat. “Um, so – I convinced my mom to let you live here for awhile free of charge... you were in pretty bad shape when I found you.” He rubs the back of his head. “I'm going to go make dinner but, uh, we should talk after.”

Tajima gives a little nod and avoids eye contact. Hanai stiffly nods, gingerly sliding the door shut after him.

 

“So, who's the new kid?” A smooth voice asks from the doorway.

“Tajima,” Hanai says, scooping some rice into a pot.

“Is he going to eat with us?”

He casts a glance towards the entry way, as if he's waiting for Tajima to just magically show up there. He puts down the bowl and sighs. “I don't know.” He frowns. “He seems pretty messed up, Riou.”

Riou pulls out a chair, sitting down in it and putting his feet up onto the table – Hanai swats at them, and he puts them back down, crossing his arms behind his head.

“Who comes here that isn't?” He asks quietly, looking out the window to see large flakes of snow starting to collect on the glass.

Hanai stays quiet, and they eat without Tajima.

 

 

 


	2. ii.

 His name is Hanai. He's a studying to be an English teacher at Saitama University, and he plays baseball. He can cook, which Tajima finds out when he brings dinner up to him that night, and he seems to have a permanently worried face, at least whenever he's talking to him.

“Do you go to school?” He asks, sitting cross legged and leaning against the cream colored wall next to the bed. Tajima rests his hands on his knees of his splayed out legs, eyes focusing on the tray filled with empty dishes that once had food in them, all of which he had inhaled in about five minutes.

“Yes.” He pauses. “Nishiura.”

Some flicker of recognition shifts across Hanai's face, but he quickly regains his composure – Tajima wonders if he just imagined it.

“How old are you?

“17.”

There's a moment of quiet, and the window in the room rattles, and they can hear the boy next door's floorboards creaking as he moves around.

“What happened to you?”

Tajima looks up at Hanai, startled by the question. The other boy is staring at him, but when he looks up his face flushes and he takes off his glasses, looking down to clean them with his shirt.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, putting his glasses back on. “You don't have to answer--”

“Azusa!” A womanly voice rings through the house, following quickly by the shutting of the front door, and Hanai's entire body tensing up. He jumps to his feet, looking panicked – Tajima covers his mouth with his hand to suppress a small laugh.

The door to his room slides open, and the presumed owner of the voice bursts in, followed closely by two twin girls who couldn't be older than middle schoolers. “Azusa! There you are!” She bustles over to him, looking at him up and down, and it's all Tajima can do not to smirk at the way Hanai's face has blanched.

“Where else would I be, mom?” He asks indignantly, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, avoiding eye contact. The twin girls – his sisters, Tajima guesses – eye him carefully, and he looks away, studying a growing hole near the hem of his t-shirt. Something about looking at them seems wrong, in the state he's in now. Hanai glances over, and sighs. “This is the boy I was telling you about.” He gestures over, and the referenced boy looks up, shoulders hunched around his face.

Mrs. Hanai looks over. “Oh my,” she says, stepping closer and bending down. “How are you, dear? What's your name?”

Tajima leans back from her, ducking his chin towards his chest. “Tajima Yuuichirou,” he mumbles. “Sorry for the intrusion.”

“Oh, honey, it's no intrusion.” She puts a hand to the side of his face, rubbing a smudge of dirt off of it with her thumb – he surprises himself by not moving away from the touch, though he wants to. He breathes in. “Stay as long as you like.” She straightens and then gestures to the two girls, who are now hiding behind Hanai, clutching to his shirt. “These are Azusa's sisters, Haruka and Asuka.”

Another sigh from Hanai. “Jeeze, can you not call me that?”

His mother shakes her head and clicks her tongue. “So ungrateful, and after I gave him such a good name, too...” She smiles to Tajima, who tries not to laugh at how red Hanai's face is.

“Okay, you can leave now,” he says quickly, putting his hand to his mother's back in an effort to herd her out of the room, Haruka and Asuka giggling behind their hands as they follow.

“Bye big brother!” They say in unison, and Hanai slams the door shut before they – or his mom – can get another word in. He slumps against the door, patting the sides of his face.

“They seem nice,” Tajima mumbles, running the ridges of his teeth along his bottom lip. His knee starts to twitch, and he clamps a hand onto it, face suddenly solemn. It's only been a few months, he tells himself, it's okay to still be sad.

He doesn't believe his own thoughts for even a second, and once Hanai leaves, Tajima curls up under his covers and doesn't get any sleep.

 

“Tajima. Tajima!”

Tajima feels that he's being shaken by his shoulder, and he blinks his eyes open, and oh, he's in his classroom, Izumi and Hamada's faces right in front of his.

“What's going on?” He asks, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. He looks around – it must be lunch time, but he doesn't even remember coming to school that day at all. “What day is it?”

The two boys across from him exchange glances.

“Earth to Tajima,” Izumi starts, waving a hand in front of his face, which Tajima cringes back from. “It's Wednesday, and this is the first time you've been to school all week?”

“And you've been asleep all morning!” Hamada adds, resting his cheek in his hand. “What's been up with you recently? You're not acting like yourself at all, man.”

The freckled boy swallows, leaning back in his seat and trying to plaster on a smile that probably looks totally pathetic, if the faces Izumi and Hamada make are any indication. “What do you mean? I'm fine!” It's not like I was sleeping on the street until just yesterday when some guy picked me up, or anything. “Everything is perfect, strictly!” I'm living in a house where I know no one and the person who owns it is a wonderful mother, which is just perfect, _really._

They keep staring at him, Izumi looking distinctly unimpressed and Hamada raising an eyebrow.

“Dude,” the blond starts, leaning forward, “seriously, are you good? You know you can be honest with us, right?”

“Is this about your knee again?” Izumi asks, taking a sip of his water and brushing his hair out of his eyes.

Tajima scratches at his leg distractedly. It has nothing to do with my knee, except for maybe the circumstances that lead to it getting messed up, because it's not like those weren't traumatic or anything--

“I'm fine, seriously!” He smiles again, and this time it looks much more real, even though the lump in his throat is betraying him by making his voice shake. He huffs out a breath to compose himself. “You guys have a game today, right?” He runs a finger along his desk, his voice absentminded and distant. “Maybe I'll come and watch.”

Tajima acts he doesn't see the two exchanging looks again, because he wants to pretend that they don't know just as well as he does that he won't be showing up to watch their game.

 

Tajima actually comes downstairs for dinner this time, because the idea of sitting in his room alone for another night makes him start to slowly go insane. He has never been someone who likes to be alone, probably a product of having four siblings and four generations of his family living in the same house as him growing up – his current circumstances are no different.

“Oh, Tajima,” Hanai says as he enters the kitchen, smiling slightly and stirring a pot of soup. “Dinner's almost ready, we're just waiting on the rice.” He wipes his hands on his apron (the fact that he's wearing one makes the high schooler gulp, for some reason) and gestures over to the table, where a blonde boy is sitting, his feet up. “That's Riou, by the way.” He turns back around, checking on the rice. “He lives in the room next to your's.”

“Nice to meet you,” Tajima says quietly, pulling out a chair.

“Likewise,” he responds, putting his feet down and leaning forward, tilting his head and resting his cheek in his palm. He has weird colored eyes, Tajima notices, and for that matter, weird colored hair – does he dye it? Is he even Japanese? “Hanai here says you're pretty messed up.” Tajima stiffens while Hanai chokes, and manages to splutter out Riou's name in a way that should be reprimanding but isn't at all with the way his voice cracks. He sighs and bows his head for a moment and Tajima swears he hears him say “sorry, grandma” before clapping his hands together once and looking back up. “Is it true?”

“You don't have to answer that,” Hanai says from the stove, as he turns around, precariously carrying three bowls in his hands and shooting Riou a look. The blond clicks his tongue and crosses his arms over his chest, pouting.

“Fine,” he mutters, and it occurs to Tajima that he still hasn't said a word on this whole matter, and his eyes are locked onto a stain on the wooden table. His fingers are going numb from holding onto the sides of his chair so tightly. “But, Tajima – if you ever do feel like it,” they make eye contact and Tajima feels his heart stop, “I'll tell you mine if you tell me your's.”

With that, Hanai hits his palms against the table with a little more force than necessary, startling both of them into looking at him. “Come on Riou, cut that cryptic shit out. He's been here for a day and you're already scaring him.”

The freckled boy almost smirks, because some of his friends are all _about_ cryptic shit, and thinking about it makes his mind actually spark with some semblance of fleeting happiness. He listens to Riou and Hanai start bickering as he leans back, the back of his head hitting the top of the chair.

He silently asks for forgiveness for the intrusion into their lives and plays with his fingernails, his thoughts bringing up bitterness in the back of his throat that makes everything taste like he's swallowing nails.


	3. iii.

 The bell of the sliding door rings as Tajima walks into the convenience store across the street, followed by a gruff voice saying a begrudging welcome, and then another, shaking voice repeating the same thing.

It's been about a week and a half since Hanai took Tajima in, and he had gently suggested he get a job to fill up the time. Hanai isn't around most of the time – he has classes all day and then baseball practice until at least 6, and Riou has a job down the street that he works most days after school.

“It might give you some... structure,” had been what Hanai said. Tajima still hasn't indulged all of the information about his circumstances to the other members of the house, but bits and pieces had started to fall through, starting with when Hanai realized he had recognized Tajima from the summer tournament last year.

“I went to Nishiura too.” He leaned back in his seat. “It was just softball when I was there, though. Once I left, it became hard ball, and I had heard that there was an amazing player there.” He glances over to Tajima, who is curling and uncurling his fingers.

“You guys... you were just a bunch of first years, right?” He asked, crossing his arms as he leaned back against his chair and closed his eyes. “No one could believe it that you made it as far as you did.”

We still lost in the end, even if I was supposed to be an amazing player, Tajima thought but didn't say, and his own cynicalness bit at his throat – he never was like this before. He was the only one who thought they could do it, and now here he was, crapping on their victories like they were nothing. He hugged himself, studying the grit in the tiles of the kitchen floor.

“Why aren't you still playing?”

“I got injured,” Tajima answered a little too quickly, and he braced himself for Hanai to ask how or what happened, but it didn't come. Instead, he just nodded, apparently taking the hint that it was something he didn't want to talk about.

He walks up to the counter, hands in his pockets. The boy working seems to be about his age, maybe a little older, but he has the voice of an old man. His downturned eyes seem disinterested, like Tajima is just wasting his time by even being in his presence – no wonder the store is hiring. This guy is probably scaring off all the customers.

“Can I help you?” He asks, resting his crossed arms on the counter.

“Um,” Tajima starts, suddenly feeling a pair of eyes watching his back – he glances over his shoulder to see another boy, the same age he's guessing, peeking at him from behind a shelf. He swallows and tries to ignore it. “I heard you guys were hiring?”

“Oh, you're here for that.” The cashier taps his fingers against the counter for a moment. “Hold on, let me call the manager. Ms. Momoe!” He calls out to an open door, only leaning back in his stool slightly. “There's someone asking about the job here!”

A woman appears – Tajima's eyes instantly fall to her chest and he colors red all the way to his ears, making his freckles stand out. He brushes the sides of his face and avoids eye contact. It feels wrong to look at her, and he pushes up the sleeves on the button up shirt Riou let him borrow (it was at least two sizes too big, but it was better than the permanently dirty t-shirts that were currently in his possession).

“Is that so?” She asks, walking briskly over to the counter. They're about the same height, Tajima realizes, and she tilts her head. “I'm Momoe Maria. And you are... ?”

“Ta--” His voice catches on the first syllable. He clears his throat, straightening up. “Tajima Yuuichirou. Nice to meet you,” he mumbles at the last minute, gaze drifting over just enough to catch a ghost of a smile on her lips.

“Nice to meet you. This is Abe,” she gestures to the boy at the counter, who gives a slight nod, “and that's Mihashi.” She jerks her head in the direction of the brunette, still shaking behind a shelf. She looks at him almost fondly. “Can you do heavy lifting?” Her expression is doubtful, and Tajima wishes he could prove her wrong – maybe if he was still on the baseball team. Maybe if... he can feel a heat rising in his throat and he swallows it, along with whatever he was about to think, down.

“I... um.” He rubs the toe of his shoe into the linoleum flooring, hunching up his shoulders. “I can't, my knee is messed up.” He pauses, looking out the window. “Like, really messed up.”

She hums slightly and nods. “I thought so. You favor your left side when standing.”

Tajima starts, eyebrows furrowing together. He looks down at himself, and his weight is more to his left, but he barely noticed it himself – who is this woman? Is she some kind of monster?

“Oh, I noticed that too,” interjects Abe, and Tajima looks at him. What kind of convenience store is this, where all the people are hyper observant? Some kind of fear must read on Tajima's face, because Abe smirks.

He gulps, wondering if he wants to work here after all.

 

Tajima doesn't really know how he got the job. Maybe the manager felt bad for him, or maybe they were really that hard-pressed to hire someone, but he answered negatively to almost every question and still landed a simple job as a stock boy and cashier to fill in for either Mihashi or Abe depending on the day.

The question that made his chest hurt the most was when she asked if he was good with people – everything about him screamed that he's not: his unsure body language, his avoidance to make eye contact, his clouded speech, but he still forced out a meek “yes.”

It made him sick to his stomach to think that he had to lie about being good with people; that was supposed to be one of his high points. He wasn't very smart, but he could read people, and he was popular and people wanted to be around him – at least, that's what everyone always said. But now he had to force himself to say that he was, even when it was clear as day that he's anything but good with people under his current circumstances.

Ms. Momoe had only let out an interested hum, not questioning it any further and, Tajima guesses, pretending she believed him.

“Can you start tomorrow?” was the last question she asked.

Tajima shows up fifteen minutes before his shift starts – it wasn't like he had anything better to do, and he didn't want to make any worse of an impression than he already had. He's greeted, kind of, by Abe, who just gives a vague nod of recognition and then juts out a thumb towards the back room. The freckled boy follows his direction and finds a new apron sitting on the table.

He smooths it out as he walks out of the room and looks to Abe, who is reading a sports magazine.

“So... what should I do?”

“Sweep.”

No wonder Mihashi was a nervous wreck around Abe, Tajima thinks as he grabs a broom from the storage closet back in the break room. He's so calculating it makes _Tajima_ second guess himself – though, maybe that's not that hard to do anymore, he realizes bitterly. He swallows, trying to relieve some of the tightness forming in his throat.

“Hey... Abe...” he starts up hesitantly, stopping his sweeping and waiting until the cashier looks over to him. “How did you know my knee was messed up?” He continues, trying to sound nonchalant (not one of his strong suits, but he gives it a shot anyway).

“I'm the same,” Abe offers as an explanation, but it doesn't really answer his question. He must be able to see the quirk of Tajima's eyebrow, because he continues with a sigh. “When I was a first year, I damaged my knee during a baseball game.” He frowns and furrows his brow together. “I was a catcher, so my knees were already bad anyway, but I twisted it badly. I was out for the rest of the season.”

“But couldn't you have... fixed it, or something?” Tajima gestures helplessly at the air. “I mean, if you had really wanted to keep playing?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he responds flatly, eyes turning back to his magazine, and Tajima feels an uncomfortable weight in his chest as he slips back between the shelves, trying to catch his breath.


	4. iv.

 Tajima wants the attention, and he recognizes this as he blows another second year behind the cafeteria during school hours – whatever. If someone wants it, he might as well give it to them, if it'll get people to give him the attention he wants, even though the attention makes him feel slimy and sick to his stomach and lands him right in the principal's office, because of course some first year just had to walk by right as his classmate came all over Tajima's hands.

“You're both suspended. One week.”

The other boy looks floored – stupid, Tajima thinks, considering the circumstances. He had to have known what he was getting into when he proposed it. The freckled boy wipes at his mouth with the back of his wrist one more time, reminding himself to rinse his mouth out as soon as he gets out of there. He nods and accepts his punishment; it's not like he comes to school more than twice a week anyway.

“You're dismissed.”

The two boys don't make eye contact as they stand to leave – the other boy hurries out of the room, face burning red. Tajima huffs out a breath before turning.

“Tajima-kun,” the principal starts up again, and the student freezes. “I'll be calling your brother about this.”

A few snide remarks drift through his mind, ranging from “perfect” to “good luck” to things that he's ashamed of even thinking, but his hands feel sticky and he thinks he's going to have to take at least five showers to get this skeezy feeling off of his skin, so he lets out a sigh instead.

“Got it.”

 

Tajima had barely arrived back at the boarding house and dropped to his bed before his phone rang. He picks it up without looking at the name, already knowing who it must be.

“Hello?”

“Yuu.”

His blood still runs cold when he hears his brother's voice through the scratchy receiver despite the fact that he tried to brace himself for it.

“Bro...” He breathes, face burning and hands clutching at his sheets to give him some grip on reality.

“I got a call from your school. What the hell were you thinking, Yuu? With a guy, even?”

Tajima cringes, biting his bottom lip. His eyes start to sting.

“Would it have been okay if it was a girl?”

“Wh-- what are you talking about? No!” Tajima closes his eyes, glad he doesn't have to add raging homophobia to the list of reasons his brother must hate him. “God, where are you right now? I think you need to come back home.”

He grimaces at the prospect – how can his brother just force him out and then act like nothing happened? Act like he's still in control of what Tajima does? He sits up and raises his voice, probably more than necessary.

“No way! You kicked me out, remember, bro?” He swallows, trying to measure his anger. He's not supposed to get angry – no, maybe this feeling is more like shame. It doesn't matter, he doesn't like the way either of these emotions make him feel, and he grabs at his chest. “You don't get to tell what to do anymore!”

There's a crinkly sigh on the other end.

“Yuuichirou--”

“Just... just fuck off!” He hangs up immediately, his heart racing and his face heating up. He throws his cell phone to the side and curls into a ball, covering his face with his arms, forcing the bile rising in his throat back down.

“Brother trouble?” comes a voice from his door, and when he turns his head around it's Riou leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest and studying his fingernails. “Been there.” He takes a few steps in, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Don't you think it's time you told me what happened?” He kneels down next to Tajima, placing a hand on his head and pushing away the hair from his forehead, forcing him to look up. Riou looks at him with those weird colored eyes, and Tajima breathes out unsteadily.

“It's nothing,” he lies, voice shaking, and he suddenly just wants to collapse into Riou's chest and tell him everything, to get the attention he so clearly needs, to finally piece together all of the things that have lead up to this point and let someone lift the weight off his shoulders, but he forces himself to say that it's nothing, because he doesn't want someone to have to bear his struggles along with their own, which Tajima knows Riou is not short of. He blows out a breath and looks away from the severity in Riou's eyes.

“I left because of my brother,” the blond says, sliding his hand down to Tajima's shoulder. His voice is quiet, barely audible over the whirring of the space heater in the corner of the room. “Roka.” He practically spits out his name. “He was such a bully...” He closes his eyes and sinks down, sitting onto the bed next to the other boy. “I hate him.” His voice takes on a hollow quality that makes Tajima shiver.

“Still?”

Riou nods. “Every day, he would call me names, push me into walls,” he swallows and looks at his hands – when Tajima follows his gaze, he can see that they're shaking. “Other things.” He curls his hands into fists. “The one time I fought back, he beat me up worse than ever, and then told me not to come back.”

Tajima feels a sharp pain in between his ribs and he visibly grimaces.

“Do you feel troubled by that?” Riou asks suddenly, catching him off guard. “By what I just told you?”

He's not sure how to respond. Of course it troubles him, knowing that someone he knows – one of his friends, he thinks boldly, because maybe that's what they are now – went through that. That they had to live with someone who was so disgusting and cruel.

But it doesn't add anything to the weight on his chest, it doesn't further hurt him – it doesn't burden him more than his own problems already do.

“No.”

It's the truth, for once.

“Then why am I or Hanai so different?” He turns his head to look at the freckled boy, tilting it as he rests his elbow against his knee and his cheek in his palm. “You don't have'ta keep it to yourself.” He even smiles, here. “You know?”

There's a long silence, where Tajima's hands cup either side of his own face, eyes downturned and strained. Riou just completely turned the tables on him and he can't explain why it makes him feel like throwing up. They listen to the traffic outside, and then they hear the door open and Hanai's faint “I'm home” rings through the house, which just makes Tajima curl up onto himself even more.

“What I'm saying is... you should tell me. And Hanai too. He's real worried about you.” He laughs softly. “I know he's cute when he's worried, but it's not good for him.” He sighs, in kind of a happy way and stands up. “He's just a caring kind of guy, you know?” He walks across the room, socked feet making soft pats against the creaking floorboards. He opens the door but doesn't leave quite yet, resting a hand against the doorframe. “If you want to tell me, you know where to find me.”

“Wait,” Tajima blurts out, just as Hanai passes the room, looking in. “I'll tell you.” He looks over, and his eyes fall on Hanai, and he swallows, settling his gaze back to the ridges on his hands. “Both of you,” he mumbles.

It's already almost time for dinner, so they sit in the kitchen as Tajima talks, Riou sitting in his usual chair with an arm slung over the back of it, and Hanai hovering by the stovetop, his face thankfully obscured – Tajima doesn't know if he could go through with telling them if he had to see Hanai's reactions to the whole thing. In fact, he's having second thoughts regardless, and he tightens his grip on his teacup. He doesn't want to relive this.

He doesn't want to force his problems on others, but he continually reminds himself of what Riou said earlier, and he forces himself to talk after a long period of silence.

“Back in September, I... well, my parents... ah,” the words are getting jumbled up in his head and they come out sounding even worse from his mouth – he has spent so much time shutting this memory out, it feels contradictory to now try to remember the details. “I got in a car accident.” He starts with what he knows. “My parents, and then my oldest sister and my second oldest brother were in the car too.” His eyes flicker to Hanai, who has stopped what he's doing, placing the knife down and gripping the countertop. He forces his gaze away. “I think... it was raining. That's why it happened, I guess.” He pauses, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth for a second to compose himself. “One of my knee caps broke into like, five pieces, and I broke my arm and my collarbone.” He's delaying talking about the inevitable. “The doctors said I was lucky to be alive.”

He didn't feel lucky, when it happened. He didn't feel lucky at all, to find out that everyone in the car with him had died – why them and not him? Why did he have to survive his stupid surgery, why did he not die on impact like the rest of them?

How could he be so damn lucky to survive, be so lucky to be alive, when they all had to leave him? The questions he had made him sick to his stomach – he's so selfish, wishing he had died, and leaving his remaining siblings with even more grief than they could already bear.

He leans forward, resting his crossed arms on the table and burying his head into them. Those questions are rushing into his mind again, and he just can't understand why it had to be him to live.

“No one else lived,” he chokes out, voice muffled. “I was so lucky, that I lived.”

How ungrateful he must sound – he got to live, but he just wishes he had died with the rest of them.

“I couldn't play baseball anymore.” I had said I wanted to play until I was 200 years old. He almost lets out a bitter laugh – almost. It comes out of his mouth as just air, any sound getting lost in his throat. “I moved in with my other sister, and then I went to my brother's.” He rubs his eyes with the back of his wrists, pressing a hand to his chest, fingers curling around the fabric of his t-shirt. “They told me to get over it. They thought I was still upset 'cause I couldn't play baseball.”

He kicks his feet uselessly in the air, his toes just barely brushing over the floor.

“I guess I was too much trouble for my brother, 'cause he ended up kicking me out too.”

He lets his speech drift off, rubbing his hands together distractedly, hunching up his shoulders close to his face. That's when Hanai found him, a couple days after he had been kicked out, and he doesn't need to rehash all that.

“So... yeah,” is what he eloquently finishes with, daring to look at his housemates. Riou's lips are pressed into a tight line, jaw set and eyes staring at some undefined point on the floor. Hanai's expression is even worse – some kind of combination of pity and disgust, and Tajima hopes the second one is because of his brother and not because of himself. He rubs his arm uselessly, attempting a shallow smile, until Riou finally speaks up, startling him.

“You are pretty messed up, huh,” he says, eyes shifting over to Tajima.

“Riou!” Hanai cries, “What's wrong with you?”

The blond winces and rubs the back of his head. “Nothing! It's true! And it's not like he doesn't know it, it's not like he doesn't have a reason to be!” He crosses his arms over his chest. “To stop being messed up you have to at least acknowledge that you are, first, anyway!”

And here, Tajima actually laughs. He laughs harder than he has in ages, until his body is shaking and his stomach hurts. He doesn't know what caused the reaction – maybe he's going insane is the first thing he thinks, but it could be one of those nervous reactions that people have sometimes. Maybe it's from all the tickle therapy that took place in the dugout last year, which basically conditioned him to laugh when he was under extreme stress (which doesn't happen often, but could very easily be happening right now), but either way, Tajima has to catch his breath for a moment.

“Maybe it's cool that we can be messed up together,” he says, and it's the most Tajima-like thing to leave his mouth in months, and he wipes his eyes with his palms. “Y'know?”

Hanai and Riou are staring at him, the former looking confused and worried and the latter looking amused.

“See? Told you he knows it,” The blond says, smug. “What normal person would laugh like that after telling us something so fucked up?”

Hanai rolls his eyes and serves them dinner, and Tajima forgets about the lump in his throat that has been there for days and the headache that has come with pushing back tears for so long. He forgets about it, until at least after dinner, when he retreats to his room. He sits on the edge of his bed, and now that he's stopped talking and actually thinks about the past few hours, he finally gives up on fighting the tears that have been so obviously trying to escape for too long now. He ducks his head onto his knees and cries so hard his shoulders shake, and he almost wants to laugh again from how stupid he feels.

He hears a knock at his door just before it slides open – he quickly rubs the tears from his eyes and turns to see Hanai, and it feels like the entire weight of the air in the room has changed.

At least to him, it does.

He lets out a soft breath from his mouth.

“What's up?” He asks, trying to look like he wasn't crying his eyes out a minute ago. Something – probably his cracking voice or his red eyes or his splotchy, sticky cheeks – must give away how not okay he is right now, because Hanai awkwardly stays by the door.

“Um,” he stumbles with his words for a minute. Tajima sniffs and rubs one of his eyes with the back of his hand while waiting for Hanai to gather his thoughts. “I just wanted to... ah,” he scratches his cheek and looks towards the ceiling, “say thanks for telling me. Er, us.” He tacks on the last part hastily, waving his hands in front of his face. “Sorry, uh-- are you okay?”

“Y... yeah! A'course.”

“Um...” Hanai seems unconvinced, and Tajima doesn't blame him. He doesn't feel like he's been particularly convincing, especially since he went from laughing until he cried to just flat out crying in the span of an hour, which has probably done wonders for assuring Hanai of his mental state. “I'm going to pretend I believe that.” He takes a few more steps in, putting his hands into his pockets. “If you want to talk about anything, you know...” here, he sort of gestures in front of himself uselessly, shrugging, “well, you know.”

“I'm kind of talked out, Hanai,” he says, and it's the truth. His throat feels too raw from laughing and talking and sobbing his eyes out to really want to talk anymore, but as Hanai nods and excuses himself, and Tajima lays down to sleep, his bed feels too big for only himself.


	5. v.

 “Is this really the place?” Hamada asks nervously, rubbing the back of his head.

“It's the exact place, moron,” Izumi responds, shifting through the pictures on his phone, sent to him by a number neither of them knew.

“Maybe we shouldn't do this.”

“Don't be such a coward, Hamada,” the dark haired boy grumbles, hopping up the steps and pressing the doorbell. “If he won't tell us anything, we're just gonna have to find it out for ourselves.”

They wait at the door for a few minutes, finally knocking again before hearing a muffled “coming, coming” from the other side. A tall blonde boy answers the door in a stained t-shirt and boxers, rubbing the back of his head and yawning.

“More runaways?” He mumbles sleepily before wasting no time in raising his voice and asking, “who are you guys?”

“Um, I'm Hamada, and that's Izumi,” he points to himself and then to the other boy, “and uh, we were...”

“Does Tajima Yuuichirou live here?” Izumi cuts him off, even going so far as stepping forward and holding a hand out in front of his torso as if to order him to stop talking. “Who are you?”

“Nakazawa Riou,” he mumbles, cringing from the light and the sudden barrage of questions. This kid is way overbearing. Maybe that's why Tajima ran away, he thinks. “And yes, he does, but he's not here right now.” He makes to close the door, but Izumi puts himself between it, refusing to let it shut.

“We're his friends, okay? And he hasn't told us anything, so we're going to stay right here until he gets back.” He's almost growling with the way his voice sounds, and Riou scratches his ear disinterestedly with one finger.

“Fine, whatever.” He leaves the door and makes towards the stairs. “Let me put on pants. You guys can sit in the kitchen, or something.”

“W... wait!” Hamada calls after him. “When will he be back?”

Riou gives a shrug. “Not sure. He's at work, so...”

The two boys look at each other in disbelief. Work? Tajima has never worked a real job a day in his life, and they find it hard to believe that he would start now – then again, they find it hard to believe that he would live in a place like this, and yet here they are.

They take seats in the kitchen, talking amongst themselves until Riou comes back down and makes them tea and pretends to be interested in whatever they're talking about – baseball, their team, or something that has an equal lack of bearing on his life.

It's around five when Tajima runs into Hanai at the door and they make idle, meaningless small talk, Tajima even daring to smile until they walk into the kitchen. The smile slips off his face as his eyes rest on Izumi and Hamada, drinking tea with an unamused and tired-looking Riou like everything is normal.

“What... what are you guys doing here?” He asks quietly, his fingers curling into fists. They've found out, from someone, where he's living now, and he can feel his composure starting to crumble. A hand presses to his shoulder just as he thinks his knees might give out, and he looks up to Hanai, standing close to him and staring down the boys at the table.

“Who are you?” He asks, voice vaguely threatening.

“Relax Hanai, I let them in,” Riou says, taking a sip of his tea and waving a hand. “They said they're Tajima's friends.”

“We've gotta talk, Tajima,” Izumi says, frowning.

“About... what?” He asks weakly, groping to the side for a chair and sitting down. He gives a pathetic smile, like he's trying not to be worried about a thing.

“About... stuff,” Hamada says, glancing around the room. Riou stands, taking that as his cue to leave and finally get back to sleeping – they can hear his footsteps thumping up the stairs. But Hanai continues to linger by the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, waiting out the awkward silence.

“Anything you have to talk about here, you can say in front of me,” he says flatly, and neither Hamada or Izumi seem to be in the mood to argue with the 6 foot university student standing in front of them, so they direct their attention back to their friend and continue.

“We've been hearing things.” Izumi says, standing up and slapping a hand down onto the table.

“What kind of things?” Tajima stalls, his voice more timid than he wants to believe he was capable of.

“Bad things,” Hamada tells him. “That you were living on the streets, that you're living in some... boarding house, which is apparently true – the other stuff isn't favorable either, so it better not be true.”

“Like what?” Something tells Tajima that he doesn't want to know, that he really shouldn't ask, but his curiosity gets the better of him – he regrets asking the second Izumi opens his mouth to answer him.

“That your brother kicked you out. That you're hooking up with random guys _at_ _school_. That you're basically whoring yourself out. What's wrong with you?”

Hanai appears behind Tajima's chair, gripping the back of it, his fingers brushing the back of his neck. He swallows, refusing to look at his friends, because what's he going to do? Lie to their faces some more? It's all true, so he just sinks a little further into his chair as Izumi settles back down with a sigh.

“Why didn't you just tell us what was going on?” Hamada asks. “We could've helped you, you know.”

Tajima doesn't respond, because he knows his words will just come out choked, so he settles for furrowing his brow together and closing his eyes. He can't rely on them, but he can't tell them that – if he couldn't rely on his family, how could he depend on his friends for something like this?

He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he was any more of a burden than he already is. He scratches the back of his head and opens his mouth finally speak, but Hanai starts before he can even think of what to say.

“I think you two should go,” he says quietly, which only makes him sound even more dangerous.

“We're not done!” Izumi protests, looking indignant.

“If Tajima had wanted you guys to know, he would've told you.” He straightens up, raising his chin slightly. “I'm telling you, you should leave.” There's a tense silence, where the two students are staring right at Hanai, but he doesn't back down.

“Fine.” Izumi finally relents, scowling. “Let's get out of here, Hamada.”

They wince as the door shuts tightly behind them.

“Sorry,” Hanai says, back in the kitchen, scratching at the back of his head. “Your friends probably hate me now, huh?” He tries to let out a little laugh, but it just ends up choking him when he looks at Tajima's face, cheeks red and shoulders tight. “Cr-crap, Tajima – I'm sorry, I was probably out of line there--”

“No,” Tajima says, stopping him. “Thanks, Hanai.” He stands up, hands lingering on the back of his chair, and gives a weak smile. “I really didn't want them to know.”

He swallows, and counts that as another burden he's putting on Hanai, on this house – he forced Riou to entertain his friends, he forced Hanai to stand up for him, he's forced them both into feeling sorry for him and listening to him go insane in their kitchen. He blows out a breath that sounds suspiciously like the word “sorry” and disappears from the room before the other boy can even say another word.

He's called down to dinner, but he doesn't leave his room, and an hour later, Hanai has left a tray with food at his door with nothing more than a knock.


	6. vi.

 “Your family is really something, Hanai,” Riou says, smirking more at the obvious embarrassment written all over Hanai's face than at his own snide remark.

“Yeah, they're... something, alright,” he mutters, burying his face into his forearms. Tajima raises his eyebrows, resting his head in a hand.

“What are you guys talking about?” He asks, tilting his head.

“Once a month, Hanai's family comes here to eat dinner with us,” Riou responds, laughing as Hanai emits a groan. “Hanai hates it, but I personally think it's a good time.”

“My family is so embarrassing!” He cries, sitting up and throwing his head back. “Especially my mom!” He's turning a preemptive shade of pink already, and Tajima can't even imagine all the untold things Mrs. Hanai has done to embarrass him in front of his housemates.

“Maybe you're just too easily embarrassed,” the blond shrugs carelessly. “Don't get so worked up over what other people think.”

Hanai puts his head back down and Tajima laughs behind his fist.

 

Nothing particularly earth shattering happened during dinner. Other than Mrs. Hanai's continual praises of “Azusa's” cooking and Haruka and Asuka's constant questions of their big brother, they got through it with Hanai only turning bright red three times, which is probably a new record for him if Riou's disappointment that it wasn't more is anything to go off of.

Tajima had noticed more habits in Hanai's family that reminded him of his own than he'd like to admit, like the way Mrs. Hanai hums lightly when washing dishes like his own mother, or how Haruka covers her mouth when she takes a bite like his oldest sister. How Hanai's parents constant talk about what a good boy he is now, when he didn't used to be before at all, reminds him of his parents praising his oldest brother for all his accomplishments.

He wishes he didn't see them in everything, that he wasn't forcing his life on everyone he encounters.

He walks up the stairs slowly and is about to open the door to his room when he hesitates, letting out a sigh to relieve some of the tension in his neck and letting his gaze wander down the hall, where it falls on Hanai's door, slightly open. He creeps over and looks inside, and sees that the other boy is taking off his shirt – he's bent over, bumps of his spine protruding, pale skin stretched over his shoulder blades. His eyes widen, just a bit, and he feels a pain between his ribs.

He can't stop himself from walking into Hanai's room and pressing his face into his exposed back, sliding his arms around his torso and staying there, even when he feels the other boy tense up.

“T... Tajima?” Hanai asks slowly, his skin coloring pink from embarrassment. “What's the big idea, barging in here--”

“Hanai,” he interrupts, voice quiet and forcibly measured. “Just let me do this.” There's a pause, and the university student lets his shoulders slacken. “Please.”

There's a sigh, and a small “okay” from Hanai.

“Can we at least... sit down, or something?” He asks. Tajima can feel him gesturing in the air, and he laughs softly. This guy is such a mood killer, he thinks as he unhooks his arms from his torso, flopping down onto the side of the bed, legs curled up and arms hanging listlessly over his knees. He falls onto his back after just a moment, blowing out a soft breath as the weight on the bed shifts, Hanai having laid next to him after putting on a shirt.

Tajima curls up onto his side, resting his head on his hand.

“So... what's up?” He asks quietly, feeling a shift in the weight of the room, or maybe just on his chest, and he doesn't want to disturb it by being loud. He rubs his nose with his thumb.

“Shouldn't I be asking you that?” Hanai asks, turning onto his side to match the other boy's position.

“Yeah, well, I've been talking about myself way too much, don't you think?” His gaze shifts to the side, a shy sort of smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I like to hear about you.”

Hanai seems to suddenly realize what he's said, because he turns red, biting his bottom lip. Tajima wants to laugh, because that was so lame, but he feels his cheeks also flush pink – he grabs Hanai's free hand to cover it up, and plays with his fingers. They talk idly for a few more minutes, progressively moving closer to each other until they're less than a foot apart, their voices becoming more and more faraway until they're barely louder than their own breathing.

The air around them seems to weigh a hundred pounds, or it feels like you could cut through it with a knife, or all those other lame metaphors Tajima learned in class but never really paid any attention to. A soft breath slips through his lips, and he doesn't want to explain his urge to move his head the extra few centimeters to kiss Hanai, just by looking into his eyes – he feels disgusting, thinking such things, or maybe it's shame from intruding into his life so much, first into his home and now into his actual bedroom. He can't tell the difference between his emotions anymore, they all manifest themselves the same anyway.

He huffs out a breath and restrains himself from doing anything rash or crying or something like that, but he can feel his hands shaking so he ducks his head under Hanai's chin, grabbing at his shirt just so he'll have something to distract himself with. It only takes the university student a moment to wrap his arms around the other boy, blowing out a soft breath.

“Say, Tajima... why are you doing this?” He asks, and his voice almost sounds relieved.

“I miss my family,” he whispers, without thinking, but now it's out there. He misses his parents, and his brothers and sisters, and somewhere in his stomach tells him that he wishes he was dead too – but that's too much, so he doesn't say any of that. He just lets his words hang in the air as Hanai shifts against the mattress, sitting up and pulling Tajima up with him, pressing his face into the crook of the freckled boy's neck.

He doesn't even have to say anything – somehow, this is enough for Tajima, who smiles even though his eyes are stinging and who hooks his arms under Hanai's even though a lump is forming in his throat. It's enough, that he can be in someone's company and maybe not feel like a burden for once.

Maybe it's enough, to be with Hanai, he thinks as they both drift off to sleep after sitting there for hours, talking about nothing and everything at the same time. He wants it so desperately to be enough.


	7. vii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> within lies boys fricking. you've been warned.

 Coming into Hanai's room has become a nighty occurrence, now. Sometimes it's just to sit and talk, to allow himself this one time of peace where he's not berating himself for everything in his life, which a voice in the back of his mind says is out of his control (oddly enough, that voice sounds like Hanai's). Sometimes it's to just lay on his bed while Hanai does homework at his desk, or reads at the other end of the bed.

It's probably the presence Tajima likes the most.

Tonight the two of them are laying side by side, the freckled boy on his stomach and propped up by his elbows, head tilted and speaking softly to Hanai, who is sitting up and doing an English crossword puzzle – at least he would be, if he wasn't continually getting distracted.

“What's the English word for being able to use both hands equally?” He asks, voice kind of faraway, tapping a pencil to his lips.

Tajima lets out a one-note laugh. “How should I know?” He responds, his eyes shifting to the bottom drawer of Hanai's desk, which hangs open – he can see textbooks and stacks of neatly organized paper, and a few glossy photos sitting on top of the stacks. He wiggles forward on the bed a bit, his stomach dragging the sheets up, and snatches at the top picture.

“H-hey... !” Hanai says suddenly, looking over from his spot on the side of the bed, “Don't--”

“When was this taken?” He asks, running his fingers over the photo, fingertips lingering on the red Nishiura written on Hanai's uniform.

It's him, a bat slung over his shoulder, glasses-less and hair in a buzz cut. A few more boys are next to him, making stupid faces and victory signs with their fingers.

“Ah...” Hanai rubs the back of his neck, thinking for a moment. “I guess it was when I was a first year.”

“You had short hair,” Tajima says, laughing behind a fist. “And no glasses.”

The other boy shrugs at him sheepishly, smiling faintly to himself. The freckled boy watches him for a moment before setting the picture down and getting up on his knees, shifting over to where he's sitting and threading his fingers through his hair.

“I think I like it this way more, Azusa,” he breathes, smiling, and he thinks it's a genuine smile for once, but he can't quite tell the difference anymore between one that's fake and one that's real – but he thinks that maybe, if anyone could bring out a real smile in him it would be Hanai.

“Man, come on with that,” he mumbles, indignant voice trying to cover up his obvious embarrassment; his face has blushed bright pink, “you're not going to start calling me that, are you?”

Tajima is close to his face, so much so that he can see every eyelash as they flutter over his irises, and he can feel his skin heating up under his fingers in embarrassment. He can see as the ridges of Hanai's teeth run uncertainly over his bottom lip, and as his tongue just barely peeks out to run over his lips – Tajima swallows, trying to not notice how nice he smells, trying to make himself pull back, but all he wants to do is kiss him, to let Hanai lay him down and touch him all over, to fuck him for hours.

“I like it.”

He just wants the attention, he realizes as his fingertips slip down to Hanai's jaw and their lips are pushed together, and he's waiting for Hanai to pull away, to stop it before it's too late, but he doesn't. He just brings up one of his hands and rests it on Tajima's cheek.

He feels the callouses on his fingers, and it makes his skin prick up as Hanai runs his other hand down his spine, to the small of his back, pulling him in close enough so he's dizzy from his scent, fast enough to make him gasp against his mouth. If Tajima didn't know better, he would've said that Hanai smirked before deepening the kiss even more, their teeth clacking together.

It's just the attention, he says over and over to himself, as Hanai forces him down onto his back, lifting up his shirt with one hand, kissing him on his collarbone, his stomach, lingering and licking lazily along the dips of his hipbones. Tajima brings a forearm over his eyes, letting Hanai pull down his pants and underwear and lick across the length of his painfully hard dick, taking it into his mouth like he knows what he's doing. It's only the attention that makes his skin prick up and his back arch with every breath ghosting over his crotch and his chest ache with want. He can feel his eyes start to sting and an all-too-familiar lump start to form in his throat, which he swallows down before putting up a hand.

“Stop,” he says, voice cracking, failing him. Hanai looks up at him, hand still wrapped around his shaft, eyes going from unfamiliarly darkened with lust to worried in a millisecond.

“What's wrong?” He asks, shifting back.

“Let's just do it, Hanai.” He pushes himself up on his elbows, giving Hanai a soft look, who just flushes an even deeper red than he already was.

“I-it... ?” He sputters for a moment, scrambling for words. “It, like, sex? Like... do it?”

Tajima almost smirks at how cute he's being.

“You're cute when you're embarrassed,” he mumbles, putting a hand on the back of the other boy's neck and pulling him in for the slowest kiss yet, sliding his other hand under his shirt, which he is still wearing for some reason that is beyond Tajima. He breaks the kiss just enough to slip Hanai's shirt off over his head, their breaths still mixing in front of their face and fogging up his senses. He rests his fingertips on Hanai's cheeks, studying him – his eyes, hidden behind white frames, seem darker than usual, his cheeks are flushed, his chest rising and falling as he tries to catch his breath. He uses the side of his hand to push back his bangs, which are sticking to his forehead, and he kisses him again, first on the mouth, then to the side of his lips, trailing his lips down to the hollow of his throat and sucking--

“No hickeys,” Hanai says, almost embarrassed sounding (although, Tajima realizes, when doesn't he seem embarrassed?). “Hard to explain in the locker room.”

Tajima laughs, an airy, breathy kind of sound and wraps his arms around the other boy's neck, falling back onto the bed and pulling him down with him.

“So, are we gonna do it?” He asks, and his voice sounds too innocent, he knows. Too innocent for the lewd things he's asking for, and too normal for the mental beating he's giving himself for even doing any of this – for using poor Hanai just so he can get some attention.

That thought crosses his mind louder than he wishes and he freezes – he's not using Hanai, is he?

Tajima blinks his gaze away and lets the other boy kiss his neck on all fours above him, obediently lifts his hips so Hanai can slip a few fingers inside of him to loosen him up, squirms at all the right times to his touch. He swallows and squeezes his eyes shut – he can't look at Hanai anymore, not since he realized what he's really doing.

Of course he's using him. He just wants the attention, and besides that, he's been using him since day one. He carried him home, he's living here for free, he's stood up for him, comforted him, let him sleep in his bed, while Tajima as just been stringing him along.

He flips himself over, face buried into his forearms and hips embarrassingly up in the air, eagerly waiting for Hanai to start – when he finally does, after sliding on a condom and slicking up the area with lube, Tajima lets out a choked kind of moan from the burn that comes with the first thrust, and he claps a hand over his mouth.

Tajima has been messing with him this entire time.

“More.” His voice is a high pitched whimper, words whispered between his fingers. “More, Azusa.”

A hand is wrapped around his dick, slowly starting to jerk him off, and Tajima grinds his hips back into Hanai's crotch. More, more – punish me for doing this to you. He wants to beg, he wants to stop because he knows this is dirty, and he's a terrible, unsteady person who can no longer accept right from wrong, and this is definitely all wrong.

He muffles his moans with his hand, only letting airy gasps slip through, his voice progressively getting more high pitched until he orgasms with an exhale, cum dripping onto Hanai's hand and his bed, and as the other boy finishes, he can only think of how selfish he is.

They clean up and as they lay there, Hanai's arms wrapped around him even in sleep, Tajima hopes that all the things he was thinking about before were true, because the alternative – the one that makes his stomach bloom with warmth and forces sharp pains between his ribs and a tightness in his chest that he can't sigh away – seems so much worse.


	8. viii.

 “Tajima, you wouldn't happen to like Hanai, would you?”

Tajima's eyes slowly travel up to Riou's face – he's completely deadpan, looking out the window as he rolls up the sleeves on his button down shirt.

They're sitting in the restaurant the blond works at, a small, kind of dingy place with good food for cheap, so it's frequented by people in the areas around Saitama that aren't so good. Just sitting in one of the booths, Tajima recognizes the people as the same who come into the convenience store. He just happened to stop by after work as Riou was on his break, and they're sitting at a table and then he springs _that_ question on him, completely unprovoked.

“Why do you ask?” The freckled boy mumbles weakly, covering his mouth with his wrist.

“You've been acting all weird lately. Plus, I know what you guys have been doing,” Riou says nonchalantly, sipping his coffee and leaning back in his chair.

Tajima nearly chokes. “What? We haven't been--” He attempts to defend himself, in some way, but the blond just gives him a look that says that he's not buying it.

“Walls are thin in that place, you know.” He shrugs, and his face turns suddenly solemn. He leans forward a bit, resting his elbows on the table. “So... do you like him, Tajima?”

Tajima sinks down into his seat – the question he's been dreading. The question he's been avoiding asking himself if now right up in the air in front of him, and he can feel his heart slow down. He stays quiet, because he doesn't know what to say. If he says no, then he'll seem even more heartless than he already does, and it won't do anything to stop the pain in his chest every time he thinks about it, and it will add lying to the list of things he has to feel bad about.

Lying – would it be a lie? If he said no? If he genuinely did not like Hanai at all, if it was just the attention he liked, then would the idea that it could be a lie even cross his mind?

Tajima feels like he's going to have a heart attack, so he abruptly stands, bracing his hands against the tabletop, refusing to look at Riou. He needs to leave, right now.

“I need to go.”

“O...oi! Wait--”

But Tajima is already out the door, running down the street, tearing up and chest hurting from what he hopes is the cold wind stinging at his eyes and nose, ignoring the pain radiating from his knee. He slows to a stop outside the house, resting a hand against the gate as he tries to catch his breath.

“Yuu?”

Tajima blinks, eyelashes lazily dusting over his irises as he tries to comprehend whose voice that was – he slowly lifts his head up, still panting, and immediately wishes he didn't. It's his brother, looking professional as always, tall and steady – he grew out of the freckles that had dusted across his nose.

Their parents were always so proud.

“Bro...” He breathes, swallowing to relieve the stinging in his throat. “What're you... how did you find me?”

He shifts his weight. “Izumi told me.”

Izumi – god damn it. Tajima should've known that Izumi would go to his brother to talk some sense into him. He winces. The fact that he hasn't been at school for like three weeks hasn't done him any favors in the friend department, either.

“He came to yell at me for kicking you out.”

The student jerks his head up, unsure if he heard that right. He almost cracks a laugh, because that does sound like something Izumi would do, though not to someone so much older. He swallows and straightens up, crossing his arms.

“Is this really where you're living?” His brother asks, gesturing to the house. Tajima just nods, avoiding eye contact, even as his brother takes a few steps towards him and holds his arms out. “Yuu, come home. I was wrong.” He hesitates here. “I'm sorry.”

Tajima looks to his brother, and then to the house. He blinks back tears – maybe it's for the best, if he leaves. He won't have to deal with his conflicted feelings anymore, he won't have to deal with Hanai and Riou and everything that comes with living here. Maybe going back will be the best thing for him, because he can walk out of their lives quietly and let them keep on living.

It's for the best, he tells himself as he agrees to his brother's proposal and gathers his few possessions. He leaves a note that says in messy, shaking writing that reads “thank you. I'm sorry. –Tajima” that Hanai finds sitting on his bed when he comes home.

It wasn't quite enough, he thinks as he sits in the front seat of his brother's car, resting his cheek on his hand and watching the house drift into the distance in the side view mirror. It'll be better this way, he makes himself believe as they turn the corner and the house and all that goes with it disappears from his view.

 

MESSAGE FROM: Hanai

5 March 2014 [17:01PM]

_Where are you?_

_One new voicemail._

5 March 2014 [7:02PM]

“Tajima, it's Hanai. Come on, pick up your phone. What's this 'thanks' and 'sorry' stuff? Where are you? Please come home. You're scaring me.”

MESSAGE FROM: Hanai

5 March 2014 [17:06PM]

_Please answer your phone._

MESSAGE FROM: Hanai

5 March 2014 [17:08PM]

_Tajima, please. Where are you?_

MESSAGE FROM: Riou

6 March 2014 [12:14AM]

_You're worrying Hanai sick. Come back._

MESSAGE FROM: Hanai

6 March 2014 [4:28AM]

_Where did you go? Please come back. Call me back._

_One new voicemail._

6 March 2014 [4:18AM]

“Tajima, please at least answer my texts.” A shaky sigh. “I just want an answer – why did you leave? Where are you? I just want to know that... that you're okay. Please call me back.” A pause. “Please.”

MESSAGE TO: Hanai

6 March 2014 [4:37AM]

_I went back_

 

They got rid of all his dirty t-shirts when Tajima moved back in with his brother. He bought him new clothes, ones without holes or stains by the hem, and new shoes, because his old ones were falling apart. He guesses it's kind of like an apology, for kicking him out. For everything that's happened.

“Look,” his brother had said on the first night he was back, gesturing to the shrine in the living room. A picture of his parents, of his sister and his brother. Flowers in a thin vase that look like they were just replaced, and a still-smoldering stick of incense sitting on a plate in front of the pictures. Tajima swallowed, and kneeled and clapped his hand together in a silent prayer.

He starts going to school regularly again, and he's even able to pretend that everything is normal. He mentions to Izumi and Hamada that he moved back in with his brother, and lets them think he doesn't see them smile at each other. He lets himself laugh and smile, even though an emptiness lingers in the cavity of his chest, seemingly telling him that something isn't right, with this.

They rarely eat dinner together – usually his brother is far too busy working, so it'll often just be his brother's wife and Tajima, sitting at opposite ends of the table. The table feels big, and the room feels too empty and echos the hollowness of his own body too much, making him uncomfortable.

Even when there's lots of people at the table – Tajima, his brother and sister and their significant others – it feels weird (maybe because it's not even close to the right amount of people), and even as they all chatter over one another, he feels in no mood to talk. He's thinking too much, even though he laughs and agrees at all the right times.

Maybe it really was enough, just to be with Hanai. No – just to be living there, that was what was enough. Maybe it was small and maybe everyone who blew through there was messed up and he was no different, but he almost felt like he belonged there, in the rooms where the floorboards creaked and in the bed that was too big for one person but too small for two, in the kitchen where things felt the most genuine.

He was only there for maybe three months, but it felt so much better to be there than where he is now, where his bed feels permanently cold and the food seems tasteless and the rooms too big.

He feels empty, even though he's supposed to be home. This doesn't feel anything like home, and his knee is sending an ache all the way up his spine as a draft sweeps through under the table.

Home shouldn't feel like this at all.

Tajima sets down his chopsticks abruptly as that occurs to him, and he stands up.

“Yuu... ?” His brother says, confused.

He's been so stupid, thinking that things would be better now that he was living with his family again – with what was left of it, anyway.

He wants to laugh at himself, for how clueless he's been.

“Bro, I'm going back.”

The younger boy looks up at his brother, staring him down. Him and his wife exchange looks, and then his sister even speaks up.

“Yuu, don't be ridiculous.”

“I'm not! I'm not being ridiculous!” And he's actually smiling, because he's realized something after too long – god, he's been so dense, honestly, he doesn't know how anyone puts up with him. “I'm going back!” He shoves out his chair from under him and runs up the stairs to throw his things into his backpack, his brother and sister crowding into the room behind him.

“What are you thinking, Yuu?”

He's thinking that that place felt more like home than this one ever did, he realizes. That this place is a home only in name. He cares about his brother and sister, sure, but they dropped him when things were too hard, and that's not how people you live with should be – his mind is going a mile a minute and he can't sort out all of the things he wants to say to them.

“I'll be back!” He says, pushing past them and running down the stairs. “Maybe!” He calls from the door before shutting it and running halfway down the block and realizing he can't run the whole way there, even though he wants to.

He flags a taxi, feeling more and more antsy with each stop light – of course he had to get the one driver who loves to follow all speed limits exactly, and he gets out even though there's still two blocks to go. He tosses some money in the window and bolts, ignoring the sting of the cold and the wetness of melting snow seeping into his new shoes, trying to forget about the pain shooting up his thigh from his knee. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, he thinks as he arrives at the door to the house.

It doesn't matter that this isn't his family, and that this isn't what home is supposed to look like.

He opens the door, and both Hanai and Riou look from the kitchen, their faces showing matching expressions of disbelief. Tajima's backpack slides off his shoulder, falling to a clump on the floor, as the two boys fight to get into the entryway, staring at him like he isn't real.

He's still panting a little bit, and his knee feels like it'll give out at any moment, but it doesn't matter.

“I'm home,” He breathes, clenching his jaw in an attempt to prevent the tears that suddenly appeared in his eyes from spilling over. There's a moment where no one moves, until Hanai steps forward and grabs Tajima's hand and pulls him in to a hug, and he presses his face into Hanai's chest, wrapping his arms around his torso tightly.

Hanai threads his fingers through the other boy's dark hair and presses smiling lips to the top of his head, as Riou laughs in the background, chanting how he knew it all along, but the university student's voice is quiet, his words barely whispered into Tajima's ear.

“Welcome home, Tajima.”


End file.
